Jeff James Table of Contents

February by the Numbers

The second month is usually where it all falls apart. My dedication to a goal starts slipping and I start coming up with more and more reasons why I don't actually need to keep doing it.

The last few times I've tried to commit to a daily writing habit, I've given up pretty quickly after that first month. I'm sure that one of the reasons I've had a hard time sticking to my goals is that I made it very easy to fail. This time around, I've done what I can to give myself more ways to succeed, and so far it seems to be paying off.

I had a bit of a dip in productivity in February, but I still reached a few milestones. My overall output was lower versus January, but I finished a second draft of my newest short story on February 10th. I sent it off for feedback and received some very thoughtful responses, but I haven't actually sat down to start my next (and hopefully final) revision.

Instead, I've been trying to focus on work for my screenwriting class, which does take up a decent chunk of time every week. I'm still stuck in the brainstorming stage, but I'm hoping to make some concrete progress soon. i want to turn in my outline and get some feedback. I keep telling myself that I'm going to sit down and devote a solid chunk of time to some serious brainstorming, but I've been bad about setting aside the hours.

I feel like I used journaling as a fallback more in February than I did in January. I'm also counting my time spent in class or doing homework under the "related work" column. This meant that there were several days in a row where I counted nothing but work for class. Although outlining and brainstorming are crucial parts of the creative process, I'd like to avoid having to count journal entries as my daily writing if at all possible.

My final counts for February 2016 were:

20 hours of related work

0 script pages

2878 words of fiction

5257 words of non-fiction

8135 total words

Here are my goals for March:

Finish a draft of an outline for my screenplay.

Do a final pass on my newest short story and submit it for publication.